2023 Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr. Ollie Watts Davis

Described as “a bubbling stream of a voice, remarkably smooth down into a resonant, rich low register” (San Francisco Chronicle), Ollie Watts Davis earns superlatives wherever she sings. Since her New York debut at Carnegie Hall, she has appeared with many of the nation’s leading orchestras, including the San Francisco, Minnesota, Houston, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Dallas Symphony orchestras; in opera with the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival; the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; Des Moines Metro Opera; Opera Theatre of Springfield; and Illinois Opera Theatre; and internationally for performances and classes in North, Central, and South America; Europe; Africa; and Asia.

Dr. Davis is passionate about performances of historic significance, and has performed in prestigious venues in Pakistan, Costa Rica, France, and throughout the United States. Her presentations include I’m a Stranger Here Myself, as part of the exhibit, With Firmness in the Right: Lincoln and the Jews at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield (IL), where she also presented The Concert that Shook the Establishment, a re-creation of Marian Anderson’s 1939 Easter morning concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She completed a residency at the University of Arkansas as performing artist and master class clinician and was featured in the PBS documentary The Caged Bird: The life and Music of Florence B. Price. She has released two recordings as conductor and soprano with the Black Chorus at the University of Illinois and is featured on Rootsongs, with the Jupiter Quartet. These come in addition to her solo recording of spiritual arrangements, Here’s One, which was featured on National Public Radio.

Dr. Davis’s creative activity includes presenting at the inaugural South Africa National Association of Teachers of Singing conference; the 57th National Association of Teachers of Singing National Conference; and the 75th Anniversary Transatlantic Pedagogy Tour to Germany. In December 2020, her work with Black Chorus was featured on the WILL-PBS documentary, American Portrait: Central Illinois, Lift Every Voice, which also debuted her composition, For My Good, and in February 2023 she directed the 16th biennial Black Sacred Music Symposium at the University of Illinois. Additional engagements include directing Black Chorus VI @ Illinois Summer Youth Music, service as Artist-In-Residence for Elmhurst University (Illinois), and Illinois State University. In June 2021, she served as a Master Teacher for the 2020 NATS Intern Program at Georgia Southern University, and in January 2022 as guest conductor for the Illinois Music Educators Association Conference All State Chorus. Her current project is a recital series titled: “Toward Justice and Shared Humanity: Art Song of Black Americans as Lens, Language, Vision and Hope," which she presented at the University of North Carolina School for the Arts, Georgia Southern University, BayView Music Festival (Michigan), East Tennessee University (Johnson City); and as The Black Rose Salon Concert for the Generation Venetian Arts Society (GENVAS) of Fort Lauderdale (Florida) and the Florida House on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC,  in honor of educator and activist Dr. Mary McCleod Bethune. Her performances have also received at Working in Concert/Black Voices in Cabaret, the Peabody Institute of Music, and SongFest.  

In addition to her concert career, Dr. Davis uses her voice for important work as the writer of the mentoring curriculum, Talks My Mother Never Had With Me, and as a passionate mentor for young singers with StudiO: the Ollie Watts Davis Institute for Vocal Arts. As author, composer, performer, and pedagogue, Dr. Davis, through her compelling performances and TALKS, transfers a little knowledge systematically.  She is widely sought after as an inspirational speaker and delivered the keynote address for the televised 2020 Wisconsin Statewide Celebration honoring Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the invitation of Governor Tony Evers from the Capitol Rotunda in Madison.

Dr. Ollie Watts Davis is Associate Dean for Academic Programs, the Suzanne and William Allen Distinguished Professor in Music, Professor of Voice, and Artistic Director and Conductor of the Black Chorus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 2018, she was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award; her second Campus Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014; the Illinois Student Senate Teaching Excellence Award in 2012; and was named a University Scholar in 2008, one of the highest honors bestowed upon a member of the faculty at the University of Illinois. Other awards include the UI College of Fine and Applied Arts Outstanding Faculty Award, a Recognition Award from the UI Alumni Association, and the Bronze Medallion of Honor by the UI Women’s Association, where she was recognized as a woman who through example and service has used her talents to enrich the lives of others.

Additional awards include the Charles E. Walton Award presented by the Vivian G. Harsh Research Society of the Chicago Public Library for her “inestimable contributions” in 2016; the “Key to the City” for her musical contributions to the cultural life of Champaign, Illinois in 2015;  the National Association for the Study and Performance of African American Music National Award in 2013; and the 40 North Lifetime ACE Award in 2012, which honors her accumulated successes for continued, outstanding support of the arts in the Champaign-Urbana community.  Dr. Davis is a national honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota; and holds honorary membership in the National Society of Arts and Letters, and Phi Beta Kappa.

A West Virginia native, Dr. Davis holds the Bachelor of Science (magna cum laude) from West Virginia Institute of Technology, where she was named Alumna of the Year; the Master of Arts from West Virginia University, and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts (Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She and her husband, Rev. Dr. Harold Davis have five adult children, and three wonderful grandchildren.